


if you open your heart

by Emmar



Series: anxious heart [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Agender Character, Asexual Character, Gen, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmar/pseuds/Emmar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This," says Sephiroth, tugging at their great fall of silver hair. "It is... in the way. The Professor suggested I cut it, but I find myself... loathe to do so."</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you open your heart

**Author's Note:**

> this is complete and utter fluff. set in the same verse as [it's difficult to stand on both feet, isn't it?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3394355)
> 
> i swear this was going to be the last piece in this verse, and then last night while i was trying to sleep my brain went, "yeah, but what if nibelheim" so uh. that's gonna happen. oops.

A week after their first meeting, almost to the minute, Cloud gets a summons - and it really can't be called anything else - from General Sephiroth. They talk, awkwardly, for an hour or more, about basic training and weapons training and whether or not infantrymen will ever get to work with materia, and he leaves with a vague sense of unease, because, seriously, what the hell?

It eventually becomes a weekly thing, and sooner rather than later Sephiroth stops sending someone for him and Cloud stops waiting for it. None of his barracks mates care enough to ask where he disappears to every Sunday, and Zack's hardly ever around these days, always out on missions or wherever, so there aren't even any awkward questions thrown his way.

He arrives one afternoon to find Sephiroth pacing, of all things, and when they see Cloud they huff and push their hair over their shoulder.

"Something up?" Cloud asks, having long since dropped the _sir_ here, in this room.  
"This," says Sephiroth, tugging at their great fall of silver hair. "It is... in the way. The Professor suggested I cut it, but I find myself... loathe to do so."

They don't say why, but Cloud can guess, whether they realise it or not, that it's about having something of their own untouched by Professor Hojo.

"Well," says Cloud slowly, coming closer and circling around Sephiroth, "I could put it up for you if you want."  
"I don't understand," admits Sephiroth, which has been happening with greater frequency over the weeks. Cloud gets the feeling that particular phrase was excised from their vocabulary young and is only now making itself known again.  
"A braid, maybe."  
"That would be... acceptable."

 _Acceptable_ is about as close as Sephiroth has come to _nice_ , so Cloud directs them to sit. "You got a comb or a brush anywhere?"  
"In the second right drawer of the desk."

Sephiroth's hair is an absolute delight to brush, thick and heavy and almost entirely tangle-free, though Cloud indulges himself and brushes it for a while longer than strictly necessary. The braid itself is the work of moments, the movements soothing and mindless, and strangely nostalgic; he'd learnt to braid the year before he left home, after his mother had broken her shoulder and couldn't lift her arm properly any more.

"How's that?" he says, some time later, tying it off with one of the spare hair bands he always has around one wrist or the other.

Sephiroth gets up from the couch, moves around a little, turns sharply once or twice. Then they hum, thoughtful. "Thank you."  
"No problem. Maybe next time I can show you how."  
"Maybe."

(He never does get around to teaching them how, but neither of them are complaining that Cloud keeps doing it himself.)


End file.
